MORE (SADLY) ON AFGHANISTAN

I read about this a while ago but I never got around to making a post. This reminds of a few brief sections of Generation Kill.

Excessive Force By Marines Alleged
Afghan Report on Killings of Civilians Is Called Consistent With U.S. Findings

By Ann Scott Tyson and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 14, 2007; Page A01

A platoon of elite Marine Special Operations troops reacted with "excessive force" after an ambush in Afghanistan last month, opening fire on pedestrians and civilian vehicles along a 10-mile stretch of road and killing 12 people -- including a 4-year-old girl, a 1-year-old boy and three elderly villagers -- an investigation by an Afghan human rights commission alleges.

The investigation, based on dozens of eyewitness interviews, found that Marines in a convoy of Humvees continued shooting at at least six locations along the road, miles beyond the site where they were ambushed by a suicide bomber in a van. They fired at stationary vehicles, passersby and others who were "exclusively civilian in nature" and had made "no kind of provocative or threatening behavior," according to a draft report of the investigation obtained by The Washington Post.

The allegations contained in the commission's report indicate that the Marines opened fire on civilians in the vicinity of the suicide bomb, but then also killed six more and wounded at least 25 others in taxis, in buses and on foot along several miles of road as the convoy headed away from the scene toward Jalalabad.

Shortly after the incident, the Marine platoon and its parent company were pulled out of the area and are in the Persian Gulf with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Gunnery Sgt. Michael Turner, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, N.C., said yesterday that the company commander and senior noncommissioned officer were redeployed to North Carolina after they were relieved of command on April 3. Special Operations officers "had lost trust and confidence" in the unit's leadership, Turner said.